English

Noun

pelf ‎(uncountable)

1. Money; riches; gain; especially when dishonestly acquired (compare lucre).
   • 1906, Frederick Tatham, Life of Blake in Archibald George Blomefield Russell (ed.), The Letters of William Blake:

     But, sighing after his fancies and visionary pursuits, he rebelled and fled fifty miles away for refuge from the lace caps and powdered wigs of his priggish sitters, and resumed his quaint dreams and immeasurable phantasies, never more to forsake them for pelf and portraiture.

   • February 20, 2000, Nick Cohen, Without prejudice, The Observer:

     . . . a master manipulator who will twist and dodge around the clock to keep the privileges of power and pelf.

   • July 20, 1997, Harriet P. Gross, Author roots her stories in Vietnam War, Dallas Morning News:

     She writes about those she might have known first-hand: teenage girls cowering in bunkers . . . friends making promises they can never keep . . . rich folk fattened on wartime pelf, poor folk surviving by wit alone.

   • April 27, 1987, Ford S. Worthy, You're Probably Working Too Hard, Fortune:

     In advertising, show business, and journalism, people work themselves to the nub for glitz and glory more than for pelf.

   • October 1968, Nicholas von Hoffman, The Class of '43 Is Puzzled, The Atlantic:

     Some of the rich classmates were keeping their pelf to themselves.